Pawsitism, Inc.

You can make a difference by donating today to Pawsitism, Inc..

We strive to provide families with a personally and professionally trained service dog that will enhance the life of a child with autism, and ensure success through continued education for the family.

Dax, our next graduate, is in need of an internal medicine evaluation. He’s been lethargic and dehydrated for a couple weeks with no answers from the vet. He’s been receiving subcutaneous IV fluids 3 times a week and has been on special food. Now we need to take him to a specialist. Our little organization is in need of financial assistance. We are a nonprofit organization and we are just trying to take care of this little dude so he can finish his training and spend his life working with a child with autism. Please help in whatever way you can. Thank you!

Dear family, friends and supporters,

We have very exciting news to share! Schyler has been matched with a Pawsitism, Inc. service dog in training. We are beginning the training process to become a certified team and need your support.

As many of you know, Schyler has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Although he was medically diagnosed in November 2022, he was already educationally diagnosed when he was in Kindergarden in 2019. Schyler has continued to grow and develop in so many ways. He has an exceptional mind and remembers everything about anything he's interested in. He has exceptional hearing and can copy most sounds he hears to the exact tone and pitch. He hears, sees, tastes, smells, and feels so intensively. With that, he gets frustrated, overwhelmed, anxious and dysregulated so intensively. So much that, even after 5 years since being diagnosed, he is still working with amazing teachers, doctors, and therapists to help him learn ways to regulate his body enough to be able to do what is needed of him.

We are confident that this service dog will serve as one of his strongest tools to be able to help him thrive in this neurotypical world and will serve as a life-long companion.

This service dog will be able to help with the following:

- Provide DPT (deep pressure therapy) when needed to help regulate Schyler's body.

- Provide tethering where Schyler will wear a harness with a tether that clips to the service dog's vest. If he tries to wander or run off, the dog is trained to ground itself and use its weight to help hold him back.

- Provide a calming presence in environments where he can get easily overwhelmed such as places where there are a lot of people or sounds.

- Perform search and rescue where the dog would be able to quickly locate Schyler if he wanders off or runs away.

Things the service dog may be able to be trained on:

- When Schyler is having sensory overload or is very dysregulated, the dog will be trained to walk a circle around him (orbit) or lay close to him to create space to protect him and others if his body becomes unsafe.

- The dog will be trained to orbit or create space when Schyler walks in the hallways at school so other kids don't bump into him.

We are fortunate to have found Pawsitism, Inc., a nonprofit organization serving our area, that trains service dogs for autistic children. To help offset part of the expense of the dog's training, our family is committed to putting $6000 back into the program. This $6000 will help pay it forward to train the next dog that gets paired with another child. This will also verify our family's commitment to our new service dog and its continued training throughout the lifetime of the dog.

Even the smallest donation will help us reach our goal! Please feel free to share with anyone who may be able to help us on our journey and support Pawsitism, Inc.!

Our family thanks you from the bottom of our hearts for always being Schyler's strongest cheerleaders and being a part of his journey!

Please message me your name and address so that Schyler can send you a little thank you note.

Keep checking back for updates and share this beautiful journey with us!

If you would rather donate via Venmo or PayPal you can use the following:

Venmo: @kaabnie19

Paypal: @kaabnie19

Or message me to discuss other ways to donate.

You can also donate directly to Pawsitism, Inc. but make sure to note: "For Schyler and Luca"

https://pawsitism.org/sponsor-or-donate/

Or

Venmo: @pawsitism

Thank you,

Kang Vang

Our daughter Lilyana (Buggy) was recently matched with an Autism Assistance Service dog named Bosley. This has been completely life changing for Lilyana! Here is a little of her story.

*** skip to the bottom where you see this if you don’t want all of the details.

Lilyana is 8 years old she was officially diagnosed with autism in Nov. of 2021 when she was 7. We suspected she was on the spectrum long before that but she was already getting all of the services she needed. Lilyana is a little warrior she was born fighting for her life and things that came easy for most kids she had to work really hard to be able to do. Like rolling, crawling, walking and so on. Lilyana started speech therapy, feeding therapy, and occupational therapies at 2 years old and is currently still in both speech and occupational therapy.

Around 5 years old she started to have staring spells where she wouldn’t respond to us. She also said almost daily that her head hurt and that she was dizzy and didn’t feel normal. She would say she felt car sick and like everything around her was moving and she couldn’t make it stop. After lots of doctor’s appointments and having her ears checked she was diagnosed with vertigo and vestibular migraines but was too young for treatment so they treated her with a nausea med. We still wanted to get to the root of the issue and didn’t have answers for the staring spells. At 6 almost 7 she had a sleep deprived EEG that showed abnormal brain activity.

At 7, she had a 48 hour EEG that showed lots of abnormal brain activity while sleeping we were told this could be normal and caused by her having autism. So that led us to her getting a Neuro Psych exam and her official diagnosis of high functioning autism spectrum disorder. She was also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and sensory processing disorder.

At 8 we switched neurologists to children’s and had a sleep study done because she had not slept through the night her whole life. They wanted to redo her EEG because they were concerned. They documented seizure activity while she was awake and asleep. So she was then officially diagnosed with Childhood Epilepsy.

Around November of 2021 we applied for Buggy to be matched with a service dog through a local nonprofit organization called Pawsitism. She was accepted into the program and was recently matched. Bosley has changed Lilyana’s life. Before Bosley, when we went to stores it was too overwhelming/overstimulating for her she would sit in the cart with a blanket or jacket over her head. Now that she has Bosley she walks through the store holding his handle and learning how to find what we need to buy and how to make sure that the fruit and veggies are ripe and good. When she starts to feel overwhelmed she puts her arms around Bosley and cuddles him or asked him for DPT (deep pressure therapy) when she’s feeling overstimulated to help her reground and re-regulate. Parking lots could be scary for us because unless we held her had or she was in the cart she would bolt to the car as fast as she could because by the time we got out of the store was so over stimulating that if she didn’t have a meltdown and held it together she needed to get to

the car as fast as she could. Now she walks through the parking lot holding Bosley’s handle and it’s not something we have to worry about. At home Bosley has helped her a lot too she goes to a virtual school and he’s right next to her while she’s in class he lays his head on her lap when he can tell that she’s getting overwhelmed with what she’s learning and he instantly calms her. She loves running her fingers through his curly hair on his head it’s sensory and calming for her. She has gone up almost 2 reading levels since Bosley has been with us. Reading is something that she really struggled with but with Bosley, she is working on getting back on track she loves to read to him and he’s always there when she is feeling overstimulated if the words are to hard. Buggy is also a competitive dancer and Bosley is waiting for her when she comes off the stage. She runs right to him to help her ground and re-regulate from the adrenaline she gets on stage in the past she would be very overwhelmed and overstimulated but now after spending a little time with Bosley she’s able to run off with her friends and get ready for her next dance. She also does Brazilian Jujitsu and sometimes it can be overwhelming for her but she takes a little break and gives Bosley some cuddles and she’s able to go back on the mat. Recently Bosley was able to join her at tumbling and when she was getting frustrated and overwhelmed because a trick she was working on was really hard she ran over to Bosley and he helped her re-regulate and she was able to go back and finish her class without a meltdown. Bosley has also detected her seizures a few times at night and alerted us which is really amazing too! And since Bosley sleeps with her she sleeps through the night!

***We want to raise at least $6,000 to give back to this amazing organization that changed our daughters world! This will help to train another puppy to be matched with another amazing kiddo on the autism spectrum just like our Buggy! Buggy calls Bosley her happiness. We believe that every child with autism deserves to find their very own dog that’s perfect for them, be their happiness, help guide and integrate them through a world that can be overwhelming/overstimulating & a scary place for them. That is exactly what Pawsitism does! If you can not donate please share!